


Imperfect

by moodymarshmallow



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Romance, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-11
Updated: 2012-06-11
Packaged: 2017-11-07 12:34:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/431251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moodymarshmallow/pseuds/moodymarshmallow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The real story of Hawke and Anders' first kiss, and why Varric fudged the details.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imperfect

Everyone knows that the author is hiding something when a story is too perfect. Dragon fight goes down without a hitch? Someone died; probably horribly, and it was someone the author liked so much that he gave them a different death—a better death. One where he was surrounded by his family and friends after a life well-lived, the love of his life stroking back his hair and reminding him of what a wild ride they had together. A diplomatic mission succeeds with both sides satisfied? Everyone knows that doesn’t happen, but occasionally the author just can’t help himself. Sometimes it’s too hard to share the gruesome truth of executions and senseless slaughter. A good author massages the truth, rounds the edges, and makes it a little more palatable without taking the oomph out of it.

Then there are first kisses; those are the ones that always turn out a little funny, a little less romantic and a little more awkward than anyone would want to admit. But you can’t write it down that way. You can’t pick up your parchment and resist the urge to let your characters have that one exquisite moment that will make your readers sigh and put their hands over their hearts.

Take that time in the Undercity, for example. Varric couldn’t very well tell the truth, not when the fiction was so much sweeter. It would embarrass the hell out of them, and how would it look if, after three years of pining for Hawke, Blondie missed?

The dialogue was the same; that whole speech about  _lying in bed and aching_  actually happened. It’s funny; when Varric gets accused of taking artistic liberties with this scene, it’s always that line. It’s true, it’s a little too right, but Blondie came up with that one all on his own.

It was the kiss that didn’t happen, at least not the way that Varric described it. Instead of throwing himself at Hawke in a fit of passion, cupping his cheeks and kissing him like there was no tomorrow, Blondie stumbled over his own feet and bashed his nose into Hawke’s mouth. The actual kiss happened later, after the embarrassment and bleeding had stopped, when they were sitting next to one another on those filthy barrels in the corner of the clinic, Anders’ nose bandaged from where he scraped against Hawke’s teeth.

It was—they assured Varric—still a perfect kiss.

He liked them so much that he gave them a better one.    


End file.
